Selfie In Blue
by blacktop
Summary: As the mystery deepens around a homeless teenage girl ensnared in an international crime syndicate, John Reese grapples with bouts of regret and nostalgia. Carter and Finch help solve the case even as their involvement complicates Reese's life.
1. Chapter 1

_**Prologue**_

With his index finger Reese traced the journey of a drop of perspiration down the golden channel of Joss's back.

It skittered down the incline toward her nape, then paused, then disappeared into a little shimmering pool in the indentation between her shoulders. He stroked a palm over her ass, cupping its perfect roundness, sliding a hand under to clasp her trembling stomach. He drew her to him for a final embrace. He knew he had to retreat now that the storm had subsided.

But the regret that seized him as he pulled from her body threatened to overwhelm him. Her inner muscles contracted around him, as if anticipating a deficit he yearned to make whole again. He slid forward one last time, the sweetness of the act haunting him even before it was over.

Leaving seemed such a cruel punishment, as if the sharp pleasure of the previous minute had to be paid for with this wrenching chagrin. He wanted to return, to be inside her again.

He longed to be complete in her once more.

Nostalgia in a CIA operative was a dangerous sentiment. Reese knew for a fact that seasoned agents had died when they let vague and bittersweet emotions replace hard calculation. Keeping your head in the here and now was essential to accomplishing your assignment, to staying alive.

Pining was for fools.

But now as he settled behind her, kissing her nape and neck and shoulder blades while she murmured his name, the wistful waves rolled through him unchecked. This felt like a kind of homesickness, joy and sadness mixing together in equal measure.

His heart was filled with longing for something unattainable, a desire for a past they had never enjoyed, for an undefined future clouded by doubt.

As he pulled up the sheets over their bodies, she pressed her shoulder back into his chest as if rooting for home. She nestled her ass against his stomach, burrowing to ward off the morning chill.

The day's first light sifted a powdery blue frosting over their bed. Spring was promised, but held back, uncertain of how to proceed in mercurial March.

This awareness of how easily all things passed wasn't new to him. He had seen enough of death and hopelessness to understand what transience truly meant. But the force of the feeling surprised him nonetheless, another unexpected product of this, this whatever it was with Joss.

When she turned to him, laying a kiss against the notch of his collarbone, he felt his throat tighten. He knew he couldn't speak, couldn't explain how much her patience and love meant to him.

She reached up to wipe the corner of his eye and he realized he must have been crying, just a bit.

As she always did, she asked about the future: "Will I see you tonight?"

"I don't know." His reply was always the same.

But this time he amended it with an explanation: "I have a date with an angel tonight."

Of course she got his blue mood and his meaning. As always he counted on her to know exactly where he was heading and to whom. Her smile seemed forced at first, but then it burst into a gift.

"So you're going to see Joan again? That's good. It's been a while, hasn't it? Give her a hug from me too."

**Chapter One**

When Reese and Joss arrived together at the library a few hours after, Finch diplomatically neglected to mention the lateness of the hour.

Joss was working a late shift that began at two in the afternoon and it was still before ten, so Reese didn't think there was anything they needed to apologize for.

And they each carried a baby blue carton of crullers, brought to ward off complaints from sweet-tooth Shaw.

"Any new numbers, Finch?"

Reese knew he sounded gruff, but he wanted to underline the transition from personal to work time with his tone.

He looked at Joss over his cup of coffee.

She was dressed in her detective mufti: dark slacks, a navy blazer, and a form fitting white sweater whose v-neckline was cut much too low. He didn't want anyone except him enjoying the high contrast between the sweater and the burnished brown skin of her breasts.

In the morning rush, she had pinned her hair into a casual bun at the back of her head. The severe side part which mimicked his own continued to amuse him, as if she were unconsciously copying his look. At least she didn't have to contend with his damned cowlick.

Seeing her in the library like this, watching her absorb its hushed atmosphere, feeling her sharp instincts and analytic mind at work in his operations headquarters, was a new experience for him.

This way of sharing his job with her was untested, a different angle on their collaboration. He thought it took some of the control from him and gave her greater leverage in their professional and personal partnership.

But to his surprise, he found that this innovation quietly thrilled him. He knew it wasn't his choice to make, but her presence here gave him a strong rush of pleasure all the same.

Finch, of course, seemed completely unfazed by the change. As if he had always imagined Joss in this space, sidestepping the dog bed at his feet, leaning over his shoulder, peering into the black depths of the computer screen.

"Two, in fact, Mr. Reese."

Finch seemed pleased by this for some reason, as if more work led to increased satisfaction. Rather than the greater unease which Reese felt.

"Due to the promptness of her arrival, I asked Ms. Shaw to look into the first matter."

Finch let that tiny jab hang in the air for a moment before offering a correction.

"Or rather, she assigned herself to the number when she saw the avid way Ms. Groves grabbed the photo I taped to the evidence wall. The two of them departed ninety minutes ago."

Reese refused to rise to the mild challenge. He was curious about the case, of course, but not enough to ask for details. And the less he saw or heard of that depraved maniac Root the better.

"And the second number?"

Finch nodded toward the printer and let Joss pull out the photograph and tape it to the glass board.

The image was of a woman, perhaps still a teenager, with a shock of bright blonde hair slanting over her round face. The portrait must have been taken for a high school year book. In her little pearls and black high-collar dress, Reese thought she looked healthy, maybe even happy, though she wasn't smiling.

The space between her eyes was broad, her smooth cheeks plump with youth, and her nose turned up like that of a fairy tale princess or a girly Mickey Mantle. He didn't think she was a true beauty - too conventional looking for that, even though her mouth was unusually wide. But perhaps the energy of the living person, dampened in this still photo, would change his mind once he met her.

"Her name is Danica Hofer. Born in Spring Green, Wisconsin to a couple who run a general store serving that farming community. She is nineteen years old."

"That's all we know about her, Harold?" Joss sounded disappointed.

"She's an only child. No record of her parents' death. Danica graduated from high school two years ago and finished a semester at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee."

Joss leaned closer to read the transcripts.

"It looks like she took Freshman English composition, computer science, U.S. history, and Victorian literature in the fall semester. Good grades. Registered for accounting, second semester English comp, general biology, and another lit course in the spring. But then she got all W's. She must have withdrawn before the final grades came in."

Reese offered an hypothesis, one he only half believed but which he hoped would ruffle the nerves of his friends.

"If she's in trouble she didn't get into it in a backwater like Spring Green, Wisconsin. She met some boy during college orientation, experimented with prescription drugs, then heroin, and ran away to New York. Now she's working as a waitress in a blues dive and screwing the bass player."

Joss and Finch turned to him with looks of amazement on their faces.

"What? You think she's living like a nun?"

"No, Mr. Reese, I hardly expect that. Still, I find your speculation quite astounding. And utterly morbid."

Finch was huffing and puffing at a good clip now.

"But if we follow your scenario, what's the source of the threat to Ms. Hofer?"

"I figure the bass player isn't exactly at liberty, you know. His other girlfriend took exception to the corn-fed Miss Wisconsin and now she's in danger of getting murdered by jealous groupie number one."

He raised his eyebrows to make his eyes go round and smiled brightly at Joss until she laughed.

"Alrighty, then. We won't toss your idea just yet, wise guy. But how 'bout we get a little more info on Danica before I break my legs jumping to conclusions."

But the next hour's research yielded little of value about Danica Hofer.

They couldn't find a current street address anywhere in the country, no electronic footprint except for her Facebook page which hadn't been updated in eighteen months. The cell phone Danica used in college was dormant.

A call to Fusco came up empty when he found nothing in police files on the girl. If she was in New York, she was keeping her nose clean or staying on the down low. He promised to speak with pals in the Milwaukee police department and to reach out to the sheriff's office of Sauk County in hopes of learning more about Danica's childhood in the village of Spring Green.

By the time Joss left for the precinct to start her shift, Finch was pinch-faced with silent anxiety. Reese was sullen and so restless his edginess caused Bear to whine in empathy.

Without a person to track or a solid lead to pursue or a mental challenge to unravel, Reese felt useless.

He wondered, not for the first time, why the machine gave them a number but failed to follow up with any other pertinent information. This bare knowledge of eminent danger was pointless if they remained trapped in a fog of ignorance. It was as though the machine wanted to drive them mad by luring them with hope, before dashing their spirits against blank cliffs of inaction and frustration.

Harold and Joss were always brimming with confidence in the prowess of the machine. But he found it increasingly hard to join in their optimism.

Wound tight and getting tighter by the minute, Reese longed for three rounds with a punching bag or an overweight sparring partner at Neely's Gym. But Bear looked at him with such forlorn eyes that he couldn't leave him behind to sulk and annoy Finch.

So man and dog plunged into the frigid afternoon for an exhausting walk that lasted until the dinner hour.

XXXXXXXXX

"Cold hands, John. Too cold."

Reese looked down at the tiny woman beside him and squeezed her bare hands in his. The blue veins under his thumbs shifted and bulged as he stroked them.

Joan - his guardian, his confidante, his savior - was shivering inside the black overcoat that enveloped her like a wool tent.

Though the navy blue watch cap was pulled low on her forehead, stringy hair stuck out on either side of her thin face. The skin of her cheeks was slack and flaking, but two points of bright red flashed like warning beacons above the concaves there.

Her restless eyes, blue like faded jeans, darted from his face to a corner on the other side of the vast warehouse which was her home.

"Your hands're too cold, John. Where you been keeping yourself?"

The brilliant grin with which she had greeted him a minute earlier dissolved into a watery grimace.

Joan was worried about him, as always.

Reese moved closer to her on the mattress, their identical coats rubbing shoulders as he leaned in.

Unglazed windows that gaped along the walls of the building ensured that winter gusts and even snow drifts regularly invaded the homeless encampment. The soaring arched ceiling recalled a cathedral, echoing the little voices piping below it. But the floor was wood instead of marble and in places desperate people had ripped up the planks for kindling.

Clusters of men bent over oil drums which they had converted into fire pits as pitiful protection against the bitterness of the March night. Long coats billowed around their knees as the wind jutted through the expanse and turbans of tattered scarves swathed their heads.

At first Reese thought he might recognize a face or two in the huddled crowd, but dirt and frostbite and despair blurred their features so he gave up the effort.

Three years had passed since he had lived with them, been one of them. Three years since Joan - using every bit of her confused mind and generous heart - had worked through the cold and darkness to keep him going when he had no desire to move one step further.

"I'm fine, Joan." He rubbed her knuckles until a blush of false warmth rose over her protruding bones.

The old woman peered into his face, her nose only a few inches from his. He saw a tear leak from the outer corner of her right eye, carving a trail through the grime until it dripped off her jaw and down the breast of her coat.

"Maybe. But I say you look too thin. And too cold. Both."

He supposed he was thinner than when he had last visited Joan here.

Three months was an eternity in her life. And in his too, as it turned out. Joss had nearly died three months ago; he had almost died. Their world, already unpredictable and violent, had flipped upside down.

As if reading his mind or maybe just his face, Joan blurted out:

"You still seeing that girl? That What's-her-name you brought here once? Odette's boss. You know, golden skin girl like Odette."

"Joss. Yes, we're still together."

"She your special girl, hunh?"

"Yes, she is."

A simple admission, one he needed to make to Joss someday, when the time was right.

Joan sighed and leaned forward over her knees so that her face was buried in the folds of the heavy coat.

"I miss my special girl, John. I miss her something awful." The muffled moans cut him to the heart.

Odette, Joan's companion in their erratic adventure of survival and love, had died the previous October.

Even after finding purposeful work as one of Joss's confidential informants, a decade of addiction, panhandling, and scavenging had caught up with Odette as the weather skidded toward winter. She had died in her sleep on this mattress, the home she shared with Joan.

Reese had arranged for a proper funeral in a church with a minister as Joan requested. And the burial was proper too, not in the potters' field plot on Hart Island that Odette had dreaded.

But the weekly visits he made in the immediate aftermath of that loss had dwindled to infrequent stops by Thanksgiving. Work exploded, the numbers kept coming. Time just got away from him.

These feeble excuses didn't cut it, he knew. He should have made a greater effort to see Joan; he should have kept up the contact in her time of crisis.

This debt he owed Joan was immeasurable, the payment too small to register.

"I know you do, Joan. I'm sorry Odette's gone."

"She was a special girl, you know. She didn't always make sense to everybody else. They thought she sounded funny and looked funny. But she always made sense to me."

The old woman sobbed and Reese felt humbled at the immensity of her suffering. He wanted to attribute the trembling that seized his hands then to the cold. But he knew it wasn't that at all.

"Joan, you need to come with me. I need to get you out of here right away."

"Why?" She seemed genuinely puzzled. "Where would I go?"

"I know a place near here. You can be warm and even have a good supper tonight."

Reese looked toward a herd of boys and girls crouched on their haunches around a fire built in the lid of a garbage pail.

Flames danced orange and yellow before their pinched faces, casting shadows of midnight blue over their slender bodies. Bulging outlines of the satchels on their backs made them look like hunched gargoyles. As he watched, their mouths gaped in pleasure, laughter defeating the cold.

He stood from the mattress and pulled on Joan's icy hand.

"Let's get out of here."


	2. Chapter 2

Staff at Friends In Deed, a Quaker soup kitchen, knew Reese by sight. He had been there several times over the past three years.

They greeted him as a colleague of the wealthy benefactor they knew as Harold Burdett. Reese had helped Mr. Burdett deliver boxes of clothing, canned goods, and extraordinary checks from time to time.

But he was sure that they didn't recognize him as the bearded drunkard who used to take a free meal or a warm bed or a gently worn flannel shirt when he managed to stumble into the premises.

Here among these trusting people, his uniform of sharp black suit and white shirt was an effective disguise for the wretched man still lurking underneath.

Now as he pushed Joan through the doors of the deconsecrated Chelsea church, the hearty old smells of beef stew and rough coffee hit him hard.

Hanging in an invisible haze above the long tables that stretched down the nave of the building, these odors mingled with the equally familiar stench of sweat, urine, blood, and vomit that the temporary residents could never completely shed.

Reese knew from experience that this smell was not just in the clothing; a man could discard those easily enough.

It was also in your pores, under your nails, between the strands of your hair, in the crevices of your ears and neck and groin. These forlorn men in their layers of felt, canvas, wool, and flannel were his past, would still be his future if not for the help of friends.

As the men bent over their plastic plates of colorful slop, Reese thought that if he looked hard enough he might see his own ghost in their midst.

Remembrance made him shudder, the pangs of guilt and gratitude mixing in him with such violence that Joan pulled back as if sensing an imminent threat. She whimpered, a soft run of notes that pierced his heart and he was embarrassed to have frightened the old woman.

"It's alright. Go on in, Joan. You know this place, don't you?" Gently, he pushed her again.

As soon as the heavy door shut behind them, a wiry hawk of a woman with blonde hair scraped back into a tight bun sprang forward to greet them.

"John, it's so good to see you again! It's been a while, hasn't it?"

The center director, Ann Takashita, grabbed his hand and shook it with force.

Though mild in expression, Ann's green eyes and full mouth revealed the steely reserves of discipline which she used every day to keep Friends In Deed up and running. The sprawling campus of the old church enclosed a food bank, a depot for clothing distribution, a soup kitchen, and a dormitory with two wings, one for men, the other for women and children.

Ann and her husband Hiro lived at the center, acting as chefs, bookkeepers, plumbers, and shrewd parents as needed.

"And you've brought a guest with you! How nice!" Ann's sincerity made it seem as if the occasion was festive rather than desperate.

Reese introduced Joan, pushing his friend towards Ann with the lightest touch he could manage.

"I'm not hungry. Not cold neither."

Joan was resistant and, as her mouth set into a scowl, Reese feared the situation would descend into a stand-off. But Ann's equally robust stubbornness was tempered by a bent for diplomacy.

She smiled and leaned forward, not touching, but inviting all the same.

"Well, that's fine, Joan. You can eat when you feel like it. But I do need your help. We got a new delivery of clothing just this evening and there is a ton of work to be done. Won't you help us sort it?"

Joan shrugged at this plea, but Reese thought her eyes sharpened with the prospect of an assignment. He figured she was nosy enough and proud enough that the task would appeal to her. So he was relieved when she followed Ann without further comment, shuffling towards the back of the dining hall at a lively pace.

When they reached the kitchen door, Ann turned suddenly and raised her voice to capture Reese's attention.

"You _did _come here with Mr. Burdett, didn't you, John? He's back here with Hiro if you've lost track of him."

XXXXXXXXX 

The kitchen of Friends In Deed was impressive despite its simplicity. The double height ceiling dwarfed plain fixtures: twin white refrigerators, a deep farm sink with an apron of white enamel, long rows of upper cabinets painted dove gray.

Although the white subway tiles lining the backsplash were cracked in places, Reese thought the enormous stainless steel range looked brand new. Maybe Finch or his fussy housekeeper Danvers had made the donation because the appliance looked too fancy for the Takashitas to have picked it out on their own. The lower cabinets all around the room were fire engine red, a color repeated on the island that dominated the center of the space.

When Reese arrived at the kitchen, he found Finch and Mr. Takashita bent over a stack of papers on the island's steel countertop.

The two men, similar in height, shape, and age, were both wearing dark cardigans buttoned at the waist. Hiro's tawny scalp gleamed through the white spun sugar of his sparse hair. With splayed fingers he smoothed the wrinkles from a sheet and turned it around so that Finch could examine it.

Together the pair raised their eyes to Reese as he entered. Neither seemed really surprised to see him; perhaps Ann had signaled his arrival. Mr. Takashita beckoned to him with a smile and a fluttering hand gesture.

"John, come join us, won't you?" As Reese approached, the man bowed his head slightly then pushed a paper across the counter toward him.

"Mr. Reese, our friend Hiro has presented us with a little problem he hopes we can solve."

Finch's usual look of mild bemusement was tweaked by a vague alarm that made the hairs on Reese's neck rise.

The paper was ordinary typing grade without a watermark or identifying texture. It had been folded in thirds, the creases still prominent despite Mr. Takashita's efforts to press them out.

Printed on the center of the sheet was a photograph tinted blue. A human ear, of indeterminate gender, dominated the left side of the image. In the background Reese saw the glassed frame of a shelter for a bank's automatic teller machine.

Reese could make out that the sidewalk in front of the ATM was covered in snow, the sky was dark. The ear was pale and hairless, though wisps trailed like a sideburn toward the hidden cheekbone. The hair was turquoise, but Reese assumed it was actually blond, rinsed blue by the filter used to make the photo. The lobe had a tiny mark where an earring might have been but no other scars.

"When did you get this picture, Mr. Takashita?"

"This one came around seven this evening. Hidden, as usual, in a pile of clothing."

"As usual?"

"Yes, we've gotten three other photos like this over the past six months. Always hidden in a box of clothing dropped off next to the back door of the kitchen."

Reese glanced at the two men, who kept their faces blank as they waited for his explanation.

"Anonymous donor, maybe. And this is the way he wants you to know he's helping out. Like a signature. He doesn't want a thank you exactly, but he does need to be acknowledged. Another eccentric rich guy, that's all."

Reese lifted the corner of his mouth instead of winking, but he knew Finch got the gentle tweak.

Finch, who had been simply listening to the exchange, now pushed the conversation forward.

"Perhaps, Mr. Reese. But that isn't all there is to this little puzzle."

At this prompt, Mr. Takashita reached into the cabinet below the island, extracting a cardboard shoe box.

He shoved the carton toward Reese and lifted its lid. Inside were four bricks of twenty dollar bills, each neatly bound in a blue rubber band.

"Every time the money comes wrapped up in a photograph. And the total is always the same, exactly three thousand dollars. That's almost enough for our monthly rent here."

Mr. Takashita shook his head in wonder.

"Same picture each time?" Reese was appalled by the cash and intrigued by the deepening mystery.

The old man shook his head again and tapped the stack of papers near Finch's right elbow.

Finch fanned out the pages like a hand of cards spread across the metal surface. As he worked, Reese saw the papers' reflection dance in shiny lenses, their blue matching the blue of his friend's keen eyes. For a moment Reese was distracted, but he recovered his focus as Finch tapped on each sheet in turn.

The three photographs were identical to the first in size and color palette: shades of blue ranging from marine to robin's egg rinsed over the images.

But each picture was of a different part of a face, artfully crafted into compositions that disguised the subject even as features were revealed.

Self-portraits in blue.

The liquid inner corner of an eye dominated one photo, dark depressions carved in purple against the sharp incline of the nose. Another shot made the clean curve of the jawline look like a part of Mount Rushmore. The fourth picture showed a bottom lip, its edge white, the indentation below slanting away to indigo shadows.

"Is this even the same individual?" Finch spoke for the first time in many minutes. "Perhaps what we're looking at are fractured portraits of four different people."

"A band of Robin Hoods? Dressed in blue instead of Lincoln green?"

Reese was skeptical, but he held his natural sardonic impulse in check as he glanced again at the beneficiary of these curious donations.

Mr. Takashita's face was shiny with anxiety, but also with a certain wistful hope.

Reese was sure the man wanted this money to belong to Friends In Deed. It would do so much to keep the modest organization afloat during the lean winter months until donors emerged from their burrows with the spring thaw.

So rather than scoffing, Reese asked a simple question: "Why haven't you spent it yet?"

"Ann said we should wait to find out where the money came from. Who it really belongs to. Try to return it to its rightful owner."

Into the silence that followed that plain declaration Mr. Takashita sighed, but there didn't seem to be any regret in the expression. Reese guessed that decades of loyalty reinforced this agreement with his wife's instincts in this matter.

They were devoted partners, life allies in faith and work.

As if on cue, Ann appeared at the kitchen door, Joan trailing behind her like a disciple. She still wore her long black overcoat, but the watch cap had disappeared, leaving her hair sprung around her face like a halo of faded red straw.

The two women took places at the island, elbows on the stainless steel to support their weight, as if they were tired out from their labors. Ann stood next to her husband and Joan squirmed her way in between Ann and Finch. Reese stood opposite the others, like a choir conductor at the podium.

All five people let the fullness of the expectant silence extend for several moments.

Reese thought he needed to do something, direct the investigation somehow. But what could he say to them without more facts?

Joan, who had been staring over Reese's shoulder into the dingy face of a white refrigerator behind him, let her eyes drift down until they focused on the sheet of paper under Finch's hand.

Then she spoke suddenly and with unusual authority:

"What are you doing with these pictures of Badge? And why did you paint her face blue?"

XXXXXXXXX 

Under the bombardment of questions from Finch and the Takashitas, Reese cringed as Joan's bewilderment and growing alarm pummeled him. He could feel her rising panic, her utter dismay at being cornered this way.

He needed to help her before she sank to the floor in agony.

"Joan, don't worry about any of it. You haven't done anything wrong. Just tell me what you can about this girl. Do you know her name?"

He rounded the island to lay a comforting hand on her forearm.

"She's Badge. You know, Badger. You've seen her, John. Pretty girl. Lots of yellow hair. She lives near me. But she has more friends than I do. 'Boys and girls together…' Just like Odette used to sing all the time: 'Trip the light fantastic on the sidewalks of New York'…"

She was drifting into happy recollections, but Reese couldn't let her go just yet, so he drew her back.

"Joan, why is she called Badger? Do you know, Joan?"

He gentled his voice, hoping that his guess about the origins of the nickname was right.

"Badge is called Badger because everybody in Wisconsin is called Badger. That's what she told us."

Reese looked a message to Finch who pulled out his cell phone and thumbed it into life.

Memories took over Joan as she unspooled her story in a series of questions.

"But then why was her friend named Otter? And the other one named Ratty? And the other one Mole?"

Joan's rambling voice took on a sing-songy tone as the trembling in her arm subsided.

"I think there was Toad too. Don't none of them look like animals. Not really."

Reese immediately recognized the names as characters from _Wind in the Willows_. But Joan seemed to have forgotten that childhood classic along with everything else from her former life.

Finch slid the cell across the counter top toward Joan and whispered his question:

"Is this Badge? Is this your friend?"

He showed her the photo of Danica Hofer they had found online earlier that morning.

"Well, of course it is! I don't know why you have those other pictures of her all chopped up like that!"

Joan began weeping at the thought of that desecration, ending the interview.

Reese held her in his arms, murmuring into her hair, patting her back until Ann suggested they take her to the dormitory to get ready for bed. Because he told Joan it was alright, the befuddled old woman let the Takashitas guide her toward the back door of the kitchen and out into the dark courtyard.

As soon as their hosts departed, Reese and Finch left the church, heading for the homeless encampment.

Their plan was simple: Reese would locate the number, watch her from a distance, determine the nature and extent of any threats on the ground.

Now that Finch had a confirmed alias to work with, he could renew his online search for any suspicious behaviors or communications involving the girl named Badge.

XXXXXXXXX

**Author's Note: I explored the lives of Reese's homeless friend Joan and her companion Odette in the stories "Confidential" and "The Long Weekend." The generosity of Finch and his housekeeper Danvers to the Quaker soup kitchen Friends In Deed is touched upon in the story "Merry Little Thanksgiving."**


	3. Chapter 3

Locating Danica Hofer at the homeless camp was easy.

She was tall and without a hat, her shaggy blonde hair sparkled in the firelight above the heads of her comrades.

She was flanked by boys and girls her own age, all bundled as she was in dark puffer coats that disguised their slender bodies. Thick soled boots - construction, or hiking, or dirty lambskin – were their chosen footwear.

Her crew all wore identical backpacks that further distorted their figures, lending them the air of an army unit on maneuvers.

Reese wondered if the teenagers liked these backpacks because they refused to pile their belongings into shopping carts or trash bags the way the older people did. Even homeless, these kids wanted to be stylish. They displayed their membership in hip culture with these green-and-black backpacks showing off their cherished tribal affiliation.

Gathering four of Joan's blankets over his shoulders, Reese made a snug cave around him and settled into position on his friend's mattress, one hundred yards from the oil drum where Badge and her troupe were camped for the night.

He could watch her and keep an eye on possible threats until she decided to move out to a new location. Rooting in a neat stack of clothing on the mattress he found an old knit cap. With its Nordic pattern in black, red and white, he assumed the hat belonged to the always stylish Odette.

Smiling at the memory of her vibrant eccentricity, Reese pulled the cap low over his ears and with Odette's help, he stayed warm until dawn.

XXXXXXXXX 

His eyes itchy from lack of sleep, Reese was staring in the direction of the little band milling around the girl Badge when all Hell broke loose an hour after sunrise.

The oil can fire was out and Reese assumed from their giggles that the teens were discussing plans for another day of idle rambling and petty mischief. Several had already hitched their backpacks over skinny shoulders and turned away from the group, eager to start the eternal hunt for food while the pickings were good.

He didn't hear the rifle report, but he saw its devastating result: a red flower seemed to bloom from the forehead of a kid standing next to Badge. As Reese watched, the boy's thin face registered first surprise, then acceptance, then a horrible absence as he slumped in front of her.

Reese was sure the kid was dead before his knees hit the ground.

After the first scream, a naked burst of energy thrust the crowd of teenagers in all directions.

For a minute Reese lost sight of Badge in the melee and a spurt of panic flashed through him. He assumed the bullet was meant for her, this dead boy an unfortunate casualty of the attack Reese was supposed to prevent.

If the assassin was dedicated, other shots were inevitable. Reese wanted to get Badge out of harm's way, gather her into his care, and stow her in a safe space he could control. But first he needed to find her. He spun in a complete circle before he spotted her snaking through the panicked crowd.

To his surprise, Badge didn't look frightened or even worried. Reese thought anger overrode all other emotions, setting her face into a white mask of determination.

Relieved that she was unharmed, Reese trotted half a block until he could time his pace with hers. Her stride was almost as long as his, so he kept a careful distance behind, not so close that she would see him but never so far that he couldn't spring into action if she needed him.

On the move, he called Finch and Joss to tell them of the shooting and give a report of his plans for tracking Badge.

Although he would never say it out loud, Reese was glad that the rifleman had confirmed the machine's dire warnings; this was the stage of a mission that Reese preferred.

In the beginning of each case, all those vague predictions Finch set so much store by were couched in cryptic hints, but now the generalities were swept aside by concrete threats. With the enemy revealing himself, Reese could take his measure and establish a plan of action at last.

Though it was dangerous, this was the environment he understood, the world he craved.

XXXXXXXXX 

After an uneventful morning amble through the clogged avenues of lower Manhattan, Reese was happy when Badge shoved through the door of a little restaurant on a quiet side street.

Following her was easy, maybe too easy. If he could track her with only half an eye out, then he assumed that others with sinister intent could do it too.

Her loping gait, propelled by massive lug-soled black boots, was distinctive. But her costume of black leggings, black scarf, and black puffer coat was perfect camouflage in the monotonous crowd. With the dark satchel draped down her back she looked like every other young Manhattanite on the make.

Only Badge's vivid blue leather gloves stood out.

Tortoni's Café looked warm and dry, which was Reese's top interest at the moment, although he thought the girl must be at least as hungry as he was. Five tables along one wall offered a perch and the glass-fronted counter promised fresh pastries, so if the coffee was hot, Reese hoped Badge was going to stay a while.

But when he hurried after her into the café's bright yellow interior, she was gone. He didn't want to make a scene by barging into the kitchen at the rear, so he decided to buy a cup of strong Italian roast and take a seat on the chance the girl was just dawdling in the bathroom.

After ten minutes, Reese unhappily concluded that she had given him the slip. He waited another five before phoning Finch. He hoped that some lucky break from a data base would make up for this surveillance error.

Finch was crisp after learning that Badge had disappeared.

"Not the news I was hoping for, Mr. Reese."

No need to answer that.

"And I have found some worrying snatches of phone and text exchanges that mention Ms. Hofer's nickname, so I fear things are only going to get worse from here on out."

"What do you have, Finch?"

"There seems to be a veritable storm of outrage over a failed delivery of something three nights ago."

"So who's mad at who?"

"Badge is the subject of the complaints. That I'm sure of. But what was supposed to be delivered and to whom is not clear yet."

Reese kept silent, still stung by his lapse. So Finch plunged into the conversational gap.

"I'm monitoring several sites and I expect them to prove fruitful as the day proceeds. The only reassuring feature is that these people seem to have no more of an idea about where Badge is right now than we do.

"The young lady is quite good at eluding her pursuers, it seems."

"I'll find her, Finch. She can't have gotten far."

"I trust not, Mr. Reese."

Suppressing a sigh, Reese rallied at a new idea.

"It's probably the money that the Takashitas found. That's what's gone missing, I bet."

He spoke more firmly as he expanded on his hypothesis

"Badge was supposed to deliver the cash somewhere, but gave it to them instead. And now whoever was supposed to get that payment wants her head."

Finch replied with a flurry of squeaks at this idea, but his words were lost on Reese.

Badge had come back.

She crossed the space from the café's kitchen to the front counter in six long strides, brushing his shoulder as she passed down the narrow aisle.

He tapped off the connection to Finch without ceremony, intent on following Badge's every move.

Near the cash register, she picked up a thick slice of toasted bread and a tall coffee in a disposable yellow cup branded with the name Tortoni's in curling black letters.

She didn't pay for the items, only grinned at the elderly cashier who grinned back. Earning a look that affectionate from the old crone convinced Reese that Badge was welcomed, even admired here.

And she had changed her clothes.

Instead of the stark black uniform of the morning, she was now wearing baggy brown corduroy pants, a loose green sweater with cables down the front, and a black and white tweed coat which swept the floor as she moved.

Only the sapphire gloves, black combat boots, green striped backpack, and shaggy cap of blonde hair remained from her earlier look.

Reese decided she must live above Tortoni's Cafe. Or she was close friends with someone who did. She wasn't homeless at all; she _chose_ to spend her nights at the encampment hanging out with her band of confederates around an open fire.

The frigid night was her element, not her enemy.

Before she quit the cashier's station, Reese saw the old woman roll her eyes toward the ceiling with a question for Badge.

"Otter still sacked out upstairs, I guess?"

The girl shrugged in a 'what're ya gonna do with men?' sort of gesture and flashed another warm smile.

Taking her food directly to a condiment station near the front of the store, Badge loaded four packets of real sugar into the coffee. Then she stirred a large dollop of cream into the mix and re-capped the cup.

As she fiddled with her gloves, she answered a call on her cell. So Reese stepped beside her and Blue-jacked the device while pretending to search for the shaker of cinnamon.

He wasn't going to lose her again.

With the chunk of toast in her mouth, one hand clutching the coffee, and the other pressing the phone to the fringe of hair over her ear, Badge paused in front of the café door.

She was waiting. For him, he guessed.

Reese leaned around her to pull the door open and she zipped past him into the fierce sunlight. So close, she smelled like amber and earth and sweet summer leaves.

He was sure she had made him. But he didn't care. If Badge was willing to let him follow, he would keep at it until she was safe.


	4. Chapter 4

Badge chose a grungy diner for her refuge as evening descended over the borough.

Ray's Sunny Side Up had seen better days, if only in the dreams of its proprietor.

The blue-and-white checked linoleum tile floor was chipped but clean, the stuffing bursting from splits in the cushions of stools along the stainless steel counter. A crusted coffee percolator bubbled next to the rack holding menus and extra napkins near the kitchen door. Behind glass cabinet doors, an assortment of cakes, doughnuts, and pies were displayed on footed serving stands.

Happy that the place had only one entrance, Reese found a booth from which he could survey the restaurant's plate glass window and the girl with equal ease. If an assailant was going to attack through the kitchen he assumed that the cook and waiters would sound an alarm.

The day's fourth cup of coffee, this one the weakest of them all, sloshed around in his empty stomach. He wanted food, but he wanted sleep more. So he dared not eat for fear that he would drift off and lose his target again.

Badge sat at a rickety table for two near the front of the long room, her back to the wall, a laminated menu hoisted high before her face. When the waiter came for her order she waved him off. But then she seemed to change her mind, calling him back with a whispered request.

Five minutes later the waiter slouched to Reese's booth with a plated slice of apple pie. _A la mode_.

"I didn't order this." Hunger made him snap and the man cowered under his glare.

Tilting his head toward Badge, the waiter explained:

"She said you looked like you needed pie, so I recommended the apple. It's our special. Take it or leave it, Mister. The kid's paying."

Reese pushed the plate toward the edge of the table, but a quick shadow intervened.

"We'll take it, thanks."

Glossy with cheer, Joss slipped into the high-backed booth opposite him and grabbed the plate before the waiter could remove it. She skipped the greeting and went straight for the fork, unwrapping it from the paper napkin and brandishing it over the pie with intent.

"I'm hungry, if you're not."

She looked so good to him, rested and fresh, golden cheeks shiny from the cold, her brown eyes bright with mischief and love. Reese took a deep breath and lowered his lids briefly. For the first time since the dawn's bloody debut, he could exhale.

He hadn't realized just how keenly he had missed her until she was right in front of him again.

He was beat, so tired he felt the dry ache of exhaustion in his back, his shins, ankles, and feet.

But the effect of Joss on him was like stepping out into a fresh spring shower. He felt cooled, alert, stimulated in all his senses – seeing clearly, hearing crisply, even smells came to him with renewed vigor now.

The pie smelled good: tart and sweet with the spices of vanilla and cinnamon curling into the buttery scent of the crust.

Joss smelled good too, her jasmine a reminder of home.

"How did you know where to find me?"

She smiled at him, at this simple exchange which was like a catechism for them now.

"Harold. He gave me the girl's coordinates and since I was just in the neighborhood, I decided to pop in."

He doubted that was true. This diner was nowhere near Joss's precinct house or her usual beat. But he was glad for the casual lie, for the confidence she had in his welcome.

He picked up a teaspoon and scraped it over the surface of the scoop of vanilla. He would leave the apple pie for Joss, but the ice cream was too inviting to pass up. Dividing the task like that, they quickly finished the dessert.

Putting her cell on the table next to the empty plate, Joss punched in a number.

"I told Harold I would call him when I found you. He said he had something he wanted to share with us."

She put the phone on speaker and pushed it toward Reese who made a brief report on the afternoon's uneventful surveillance.

He didn't think Badge could hear him from her seat across the room, but he lowered his voice all the same. Either to trick him or because she really didn't care, the girl let her eyes drift toward the quilted aluminum on the restaurant ceiling.

Then with a whistling noise that brought frowns to the faces of both partners, Finch took a deep breath.

"Detective, you may have to put your fingers in your ears for this next part."

Joss leaned toward the phone.

"Whatcha got, Harold? I'm long past the point where I'm going to give you a hard time for your hacking, you know that."

"Even if it's into the files of the U.S. Attorney's office in Brooklyn?"

Joss hissed through clenched teeth and widened her eyes at Reese. In reply, he turned up a corner of his mouth.

He knew Joss had crossed the line long ago to join their mission, but these reservations were an essential check on their work.

Reese valued her ethical concerns, more than he could ever say.

These minute hesitations, the constant re-calibration of her moral compass in every new situation, made him cherish her partnership all the more. Each time Joss re-affirmed her commitment to him and to their mission he knew he was on the right track.

With this job, with this life.

"She says go on, Finch. Spill it."

He heard his boss gather his breath for a long sentence with a payload of heavy words.

"Federal prosecutors are putting together a case that uncovers a sophisticated and effective cybercrime attack against major international financial institutions. The operation involves laundering tens of millions of dollars stolen from banks across the nation in a matter of hours."

"Sounds sexy, Finch, right up your alley. Sure your machine isn't behind all this?"

Reese chuckled and leaned back on the bench.

"No, Mr. Reese, I do not believe so."

This was Finch at his frostiest, but since he was on the other end of the line, Reese continued smiling.

Finch continued: "I know that human hands are responsible for laundering the stolen money through purchases of luxury items like Rolex watches and expensive cars."

The pause after this declaration would have re-frozen the ice cream if there was any left on the plate.

"Almost three thousand ATM machines in New York City were hit in a ten hour span on four separate occasions since last August. Each time the haul from these withdrawals added up to at least two and a half million dollars."

Finch said nothing further, as if the scope of the operation was so enormous as to leave even a billionaire in awe.

Joss lowered her mouth to the phone and whispered her question. The astonishment was evident on her face and in the tense tone of her words.

"Do you think this has something to do with our number, Harold? How does Badge fit into something gigantic like this kind of operation?"

"I'm not exactly sure, Detective. So far the federal investigators only have a clear grasp of the middle layer of this operation. They have drafted indictments - still sealed – against the people they believe are responsible for laundering the money.

"But the prosecutors still don't know who the front line soldiers are. Nor do they have a clear idea of who is the mastermind atop the pyramid."

"So you think Badge and her crew might be the ones carrying out the heists?"

Reese let scorn slink through his voice.

"These kids aren't even out of high school, some of 'em. How do you figure Badge and her friends pull off a complicated financial racket like that?"

"As I said, Mr. Reese, I don't know and neither do the federal prosecutors. The powerful mind directing this operation has a synthesizing grasp of detail, paired with a malevolent and ironic artistry, comprehensive in reach and imagination."

Finch paused, as if stricken by the specter he had raised with these images.

"If you manage to keep our number in your sights, you might have the opportunity to ask her yourself about the spider at the center of this web."

A few words more and Finch signed off, promising to check back with them if he uncovered additional details in his search through the files of the U.S. attorney.

As Joss returned the cell to her pocket, Reese glanced toward the restaurant door.

A lanky boy with a pelt of thick black curls and a cocky stride was advancing toward Badge's table at a rapid pace. His wispy beard suggested he couldn't have been more than twenty, his dry skin and wind-burned hands meant he spent lots of time outside. Tight black jeans and navy pea coat were set off by a blazing red scarf wrapped twice around his neck and a heavy backpack identical to the one Badge carried.

Reese hated the kid on sight.

The stranger stood over Badge without a smile, his intense stare matched by her own. When he bent over her, Reese reached for the gun tucked in his waistband.

Then Badge turned up her round face and opened her mouth to the kid, accepting his kiss with an eagerness that grated on Reese's nerves.

"Calm down, Papa Bear, that doesn't look like a murder attempt to me."

Joss flattened her hands on the table, reaching toward him.

Her tone was light, teasing him out of his alarm. Reese leaned back, but he let annoyance invade his next words.

"If he tries to get into her pants. Or anywhere near her pants, I'll murder him."

"Too late. Looks like that's already mission accomplished."

Joss crinkled her eyes until they disappeared, adding:

"And I think she likes it."

Reese could only huff in agreement.

"You're supposed to protect her from assassins, John, not sexy boyfriends. So stand down, soldier."

XXXXXXXXX 

Badge and the boy spent only a few moments in animated conversation before placing their order with the waiter.

Smiles wreathed both their faces, brilliant and so open Reese felt alarmed by the optimism he saw there.

The boy's teeth were stained and Reese thought he must be a smoker, whereas Badge's were white but small, framed like a child's in bright pink gums. These two didn't look like tough city kids as they sucked on chocolate malted milk poured from a shared aluminum shaker.

Badge and the dark-eyed boy looked happy, oblivious, and in love.

That dangerous combination sent dread crackling across Reese's nervous system. But he kept his thoughts to himself as he listened to Joss sketch out the resolution of Shaw's case.

"She handed him over to Fusco with only a split lip and a GSW to the calf. I guess she's off her feed, missing the kneecap like that." Joss tilted her head to one side, waiting to draw a laugh from Reese.

He grunted but remained silent, still watching the young couple across the room.

When the kid sprang to his feet, Reese started out of his reverie. Grabbing a backpack, the boy gave Badge one more wet kiss and swept out the door.

Joss was faster than he was to notice the anomaly.

"Did you see that? Romeo's backpack was heavy when he walked in here. But it was flat and empty when he left."

Reese nodded. "They switched. It was a hand-off."

At that, the girl edged out from behind her table, leaving two bills next to her empty shake glass.

She slung the backpack over her right shoulder as she left the restaurant, heading in the opposite direction to the one taken by her boyfriend.

XXXXXXXXX 

Reese and Joss followed at a close distance.

They shrank into the shadowed entrance of a nail salon when Badge stopped at a corner after walking for two blocks. When the light turned green, she didn't cross the intersection, but looked with round eyes in all four directions. She was waiting for someone.

"The car!"

Reese pointed at a black sedan with smoky windows, idling in a bus stop at the curb. "Get rid of the driver. I'll take the girl."

As Joss stepped around the car, Reese saw her flip back her overcoat to reveal the badge on her belt.

The driver responded to this show of official force by jumping out of the vehicle, leaving the key in the ignition in his haste.

By the time Reese glanced back to Badge, he saw a thick man grab her collar and then her elbow.

The man, whose shaved head was only as high as Badge's, wrapped an arm across her chest and started pulling her backwards toward the getaway car.

With his back turned, the assailant couldn't see Reese step into his path. So when he drew alongside the sedan, the man's rotating head met Reese's fist straight on. That first quick jab to the jaw resounded with a satisfying crunch and the follow-up blow to the temple put the thug on the ground in another instant.

Reese wanted to memorize the man's features for future reference: African American, darker than Joss, five eight or nine, maybe forty years old, beefy and top-heavy like a wrestler. But thirty seconds was too long to waste studying the man; he might have pals nearby.

So Reese clamped a hand around Badge's upper arm and swung her toward the car door in a single movement.

"We need to get somewhere safe. Now. Move."

He pushed her into the back seat and fell in behind her. He was relieved to see that even without explicit planning, Joss had slipped behind the wheel and was already peeling out of the bus stop before he could slam the door shut.


	5. Chapter 5

Rush hour traffic was chaotic and the downtown congestion - daunting in the best of circumstances - was now complicated by the gathering dusk and the darting of brazen pedestrians. So Reese wasn't surprised that Joss's brow furrowed in concentration as she maneuvered the unfamiliar car while keeping a heavy foot on the pedal.

But when she cursed and threw the vehicle into a hard right turn after three blocks, he became concerned.

Looking at Joss's face in the review mirror, he thought her eyes were strangely unfocused and vague. She didn't seem to be paying attention to the traffic stream or street signs, but instead to some inner prompt that only she could hear.

He hadn't given Joss any suggestions about where to go because he didn't have any ideas himself. In the press of the crisis, he really didn't care where they went as long as they were out of the reach of the men trying to harm Badge.

But Joss seemed to have a definite destination in mind and he was content to let her lead. Her mouth set in a firm line, she didn't ask any questions or give him and Badge any clue to where they were going.

As they careened through the streets, the girl pressed into a corner of the bench, clutching her backpack against her stomach, staring out the darkened windows at the passing scene. She said nothing.

After fifteen minutes of erratic lane changes, jarring stops, and sudden turns, the neighborhood became more familiar. Reese recognized where they were heading, although he was baffled as to how Joss could know the way.

Then they emerged from a one-way street into a leafy enclosure in the Bowery that Reese knew as Cooper Square.

This once elegant park was surrounded by red-brick houses, relics of a more genteel time when hopeful young girls fleeing the countryside could find safe harbor in these gracious buildings. Now the block was still quiet, but the girls and men here were on the prowl, scuttling any hopes they might once have had in favor of hard transactions and easy hook-ups.

Broken bottles and dented cans bloomed in the gated park, glinting in the moonlight from a blanket of dingy snow. The wrought iron fence surrounding the enclosure was missing many of its pickets, their delicate scrollwork mocked by the haunted neglect of the place.

Reese rented a bolt-hole here in the Taj Mahal, a seamy hotel with four stories and a thousand dismal autobiographies. He retreated to this flop-house as a last resort when pain or desperation or wrenching shame drove him to seek its decrepit comforts.

He had never brought Joss to the Taj Mahal or even mentioned its existence to her.

And yet she had guided them to this forlorn address without hesitation.

She sat in the car, still as death, even after extinguishing the motor.

Reese ran around to the driver's door and pulled it open. He whispered so that Badge couldn't overhear them.

"Joss, why are we here?"

She shrugged and looked through the windshield at the abandoned pavement, the littered street, the winking neon sign.

"You know this place, don't you?"

Her voice was soft and muffled, as if she were speaking from inside a cloud.

"Yes. But how do you?"

Wistful and dim, her eyes glowed as she looked straight at him for the first time. He thought he could see a few tears.

"I don't know. _He_ said where to turn and I just followed the directions until I got here."

"Who, Joss?" Reese placed his hand on her shoulder, willing her to emerge from the fog.

"_Him_. This voice. You know. You've heard him too."

She tapped the ear piece with some impatience.

"Yes."

"It was my dad's voice, John. Exactly his: the same deep tones, even the Virginia drawl. How could that be?"

"I don't know how it works. I just know that it does."

His own version had been different, of course: a bright tenor voice, the beguiling notes of his own father.

She shook her head as if to jostle the cobwebs.

Reese knew this was her first time, her first direct interface with the machine. He wondered why it had contacted Joss now, why it had responded to their urgent predicament this time.

_We need to get somewhere safe. Now. Move. _

But that was a problem they could tackle another day. He promised himself he would watch Joss closely to see that she regained her equilibrium in the new circumstances. When this was all over maybe they would talk about it, if she wanted.

Joss cleared her throat with a cough. Her voice lost the dreamy inflection and became practical again.

"Then let's go. It's cold out here."

XXXXXXXXX

The argument with the night manager of the Taj Mahal took longer than Reese had anticipated.

While the two women stood in the middle of the matchbook lobby, he tried to persuade Larry the Worm that he just wanted his usual take-out order from Mei Lin's Emerald Garden: shrimp fried rice, Kung Pao chicken, an order of Buddha's Delight, two egg rolls, and two bottles of Yanjing beer.

"Sure you don't want to double the order? Seeing as you got guests and all?"

Larry the Worm was familiar with any host's primary responsibilities – feed 'em and entertain 'em.

He rolled his eyes in the direction of Joss and Badge and leered, running a hand through the lint-colored strands of the comb-over that decorated the top of his head. Reese's stomach revolted at the gross gesture and he wanted to cancel the order, but he knew they all needed to eat.

And he didn't want to draw any unnecessary attention from the busybodies of the Emerald Garden, so he kept the order the same as always.

"I said the usual. That's it."

Reese slapped five twenties on the counter of the registration desk and pushed them under the scarred Plexiglas barrier that protected the night manager from the inhabitants of the Taj Mahal. And vice versa.

This was four times more than the total charge for the food, as both men knew.

"Keep the change, Larry."

The Worm shrugged and pocketed the cash.

XXXXXXXXX

As usual, the sallow women lounging in the tiny vestibule of the hotel didn't let Reese get to the staircase without a barrage of comments.

"Long time no see, Beautiful!"

"Johnny, I been keepin' it hot for you! Any time, any place! You know you got it, just hafta ask!"

The jibes from LaKeisha and Shelley were loud and friendly, like the lobby's ruby red décor and gold flocked wall paper. And their invitations were just as fake as the acrylic on their fingertips or the squeaky leatherette on the chairs strewn around the room.

Reese remained silent as always, hoping to make it to the stairs without incident, but when Joss turned around to eye one of the girls, he cringed.

Patty, wearing an auburn wig this week, took up the unspoken challenge:

"Girls, any a you know the Priest of the Taj was into threesomes?"

She clucked and adjusted her straps so that her breasts spilled perilously close to the edge of the push-up bra.

"If I'd a known you was into that scene, Magda and me coulda worked out some kinda deal. Special arrangement just for you, Johnny." She pursed her lips at him and shimmied in her chair.

But Magda's blue eyes flashed.

"Aw, Patty, he don't want nothin' you got to give him! The man's got taste, can't you see that?"

"Taste! Mmmm, you said it!"

Shelley pulled a long draw from her slim cigarette. With its glowing tip, she inscribed a circle in the air around Reese, Joss, and Badge.

"That combo right there reminds me of that old-style Neapolitan ice cream. You know: chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. All smashed up in there together. And tasteee! Mmmm, yes!"

She smacked her lips and the other girls joined in the chorus, their mouths gaping and closing like painted fish.

Reese dug his fingers into Joss's elbow and steered her toward the steps, pushing Badge in front of them until they reached his third floor room.

The girls of the Taj were a sad bunch, with their garish make-up and tawdry outfits. But Reese knew they had his back, the best sentinels he could ever hope to enlist.

He was confident no intruder or cloaked assassin would ever get past their eternal watch.

XXXXXXXXX

Author's note: I first wrote about Larry the Worm and the girls of the Taj Mahal Hotel in the story "Ganges," in which Reese flees to his bolt hole there in search of solace after the pollution, shame, and violation of Kara Stanton's bomb vest.


	6. Chapter 6

"This your idea of a safe house, John?"

Joss's voice shot through the room as he stepped back to let them enter.

"I didn't say that, exactly."

"Does Harold know about this place?"

"No."

He looked around, seeing the cramped space through her critical eyes.

A sway-backed bed dominated the cubicle, draped in a powder blue fringed coverlet he hoped was clean. He knew the hotel changed the sheets every other week so he was more confident about them.

A six foot long rope stretched over the window from which he hung his white shirts and black trousers as a curtain of sorts. He used the room's lone chair as a valet for his suit jackets. A white porcelain sink clung precariously to one wall.

He felt anxious, ashamed. In some fundamental way he felt like he had failed Joss and this girl in his care.

He shoved his hands into his coat pockets and looked down at the grungy carpet.

But then Badge spoke to him for the first time, her chirping voice a lovely intrusion in the silence:

"Oh, this is just what I needed, warm water!"

She ran to the sink, tossing her backpack on the bed. She cranked the left faucet and plunged her hands into the bowl repeatedly. Then she rubbed the soap bar until it gave up a thick lather and cleaned her face. When she was done toweling off, she turned on the water again, this time cold, cupping her hands to take several deep drinks.

Satisfied, she looked over her shoulder at the two adults.

"This looks perfectly safe to me."

Her eyes swept from one side of the room to the other, then fixed on Reese.

"Thank you so much for helping me."

In that moment, he couldn't remember ever feeling such pure gratitude. He wanted to hug her for this simple declaration.

Instead, to keep his balance, he threw out a question he had held for some time: "You weren't ever scared of me, were you?"

"No, why would I be?"

Badge laughed, her wide mouth stretching in merriment. Her voice was lyrical, her speech like a song slowed down so everyone could follow along.

"I saw you when you first came to the camp last night. You were staring at me all the time. Sorta creepy, but in a funny way, not a scary way, you know."

She sat down on the bed and, framed by the coverlet, her eyes turned a shade of sweet blue that Reese found dazzling. He knew the phrase "cornflower blue" and thought this must be that color.

"And then you kept following me all day. But you never attacked me, so I figured you weren't bad, you know. I mean, I thought maybe you were some kind of pervert. But the bashful kind, not a sicko. Or maybe just curious.

"And anyways, I was curious too."

The girl raised her eyebrows then as if the whole thing was as obvious and benign as a summer breeze. Reese thought she seemed to take this for an adventure, an escapade to tell her grandchildren one day rather than a situation whose outcome was likely to be deadly.

Badge tipped her head toward Joss to conclude the explanation.

"So when she joined you at Sunny Side's, I knew everything was going to be all right. I mean, you wouldn't hurt me with your girlfriend around, would you?"

Relying on animal instinct or intuition or just the limited imagination of youth, she had read him, sussed out his relationship with Joss in a glance. He felt overwhelmed and humbled by this girl's faith in him. It was unfounded, he knew, but he wanted to make her fairy-tale beliefs come true.

Listening to this exchange, Joss settled into the new mood Badge had created and shrugged off her overcoat. She smiled at him at last and he gulped a bit to cover all the emotions welling in his throat. She folded her coat into a square and set it on the floor in a corner of the room

Warmed up enough, Badge imitated Joss's actions, shedding her coat and dropping it onto the carpet.

As she moved around the bed, her sweater rose to reveal a wide swath of swollen stomach.

The skin of her torso was smooth and pale, firmly stretched across her thickened waist, and punctuated by a protruding belly button that left no room for doubt: she was pregnant.

Both Reese and Joss gasped at the revelation; Joss was the first to close her gaping mouth to speak:

"Oh, honey, why didn't you say something? When is your baby due? Do you need anything?"

Badge cut off the babble of questions with a chuckle, twisting her lips to one side in a way that scrunched up her nose.

"I'm O.K. now, more than O.K. really. I think it's due in September. Or maybe October. An autumn baby for sure, you know."

Reese was astounded at the blithe tone of Badge's remarks.

Before she had seemed content, even oblivious to the danger around her; now she seemed equally unconcerned about the peril inside her.

In his experience, pregnant women were always on high alert, attuned to even the slightest threat to themselves or their unborn children. He didn't believe Badge was dimwitted at all; her survival on the streets proved otherwise. But she was brimming with such remarkable optimism that her certainty spilled over into bravado.

Badge thought things would go her way simply because she willed it so.

Reese remembered when he too had been this reckless, this buoyant. Before life – and his foolish choices - had knocked the confidence out of him.

As Joss gathered a breath to object to Badge's predicament and her cavalier attitude, a soft thump rattled the door.

XXXXXXXXX

Larry the Worm delivered the three bags of take-out food with only a smirk and an extended hand by way of comment. Reese thought the man had been tipped enough, but Joss gave another twenty just to get rid of him.

The two women took up places on the bed, while Reese sat in the chair facing them. He was miffed that the Emerald Garden had supplied two plastic spoons along with the wooden chopsticks he always required. It seemed that someone had tipped them off about his dinner guests.

As they ate, passing the cartons in a circle, Badge chattered freely about her work as a foot soldier in the vast financial scheme that now threatened her.

She explained that she was the chief of a street brigade numbering twenty to twenty-five boys and girls.

"We call ourselves the Animals."

"Why?"

Badge answered Joss's question around a mouthful of egg roll.

"I always loved that book _Wind in the Willows_ when I was a kid. So when they started calling me Badger because I was from Wisconsin, I decided to make up names for the rest of them. You know, like Otter, Toad, Mole, Ratty. Like that. So we were just the Animals, you know."

Their base of operation was the homeless encampment, although not all members of the cashing crew lived there.

She received her orders from a man named Kehinde, who handed her a deck of prepaid debit cards which she distributed to her team. Kehinde explained that at an appointed hour the balance limits and withdrawal limits on each debit card would be raised by computer hackers operating at secret sites around the world.

Badge interrupted her narrative to complain: "That was Kehinde who tried to grab me tonight. Now why'd he want to go and do that? I never did him any harm. I was handing him the money just like always, but then he goes and grabs me."

She threw a soft look at Reese.

"If you hadn't of come along, I don't know what would have happened to me."

Smiling at her good fortune, Badge continued to explain her part in the heist operation.

On the night of each strike, Kehinde contacted her by cell phone with the locations of hundreds of ATM machines across the city. At her orders the Animals fanned out waiting for word to spring into action. When she gave them the sign, her friends withdrew millions of dollars from these hacked accounts, stuffing the cash into their backpacks as they moved across the city.

At the end of the spree, her cashing crew would bring their bulging satchels to a designated drop point, where Kehinde would take the money and disappear.

The following morning, he would give Badge a single backpack filled with cash to distribute among the Animals as their payment for services rendered.

Badge said that on four nights between August and March her cashing crew made about three thousand withdrawals, stealing at least two million dollars each night. She didn't know if there were other street crews similar to hers, but she suspected there were.

"And why did you give money to Friends In Deed?"

Although his mind boggled at the vast scope of the financial scam, Reese wanted to bring the story down to the neighborhood level.

Badge's face shone with what he assumed was true pride of accomplishment.

"The Takashitas were so kind to me when I first came to the city. You can't begin to imagine how good they were to me. They helped me a lot, so I wanted to help them back."

"But you knew you were skimming from this big heist, didn't you?"

"Yeah, I knew. But I figured no one would miss the little bit I was taking. And the Takashitas could really use the money. And anyway, you know, it's sort of a special place; it's where Otter and I met."

Her face colored in a charming way at this intimate revelation. Reese liked the soft pink that rushed high on her cheeks and he thought the rosy color of her lips deepened too.

"So I figured it was right to do something good for them after all they did for me and Otter. Kinda of pay them back, you know. I wrapped those selfies around the money so it wouldn't seem so crass. Make it more personal, like."

She looked at Reese as though waiting for his approval.

He couldn't give it, but he did smile at her, the first time he had done that since laying eyes on her two nights ago.

"It'll be alright, Badge. We'll figure out something."

He wasn't sure if this was empty comfort, but he didn't want to say anything to deflate her self-assurance. If she continued to be confident in herself and trust him, things would work better for them all.

Flailing and hesitancy would just get them killed, that he knew for certain.

XXXXXXXXX

When Larry the Worm interrupted again, he came bearing a gift.

"Shelley and Magda and the rest of 'em girls pitched in to buy you this."

He thrust a small rectangular carton toward Reese. The lid said "Neapolitan Ice Cream" in red, white and green letters with an Italian flag draped across the frosty words.

Reese thanked him for the surprising gesture.

"And here's another spoon." Larry brandished a metal utensil he had stowed in the breast pocket of his shirt. "Bring it back to the desk when you're done."

The tri-color dessert demanded a different seating arrangement, so the three sprawled on the bed side by side, backs against the headboard with Joss squeezed in the middle.

As the ice cream shuttled from one end of the line to the other, the talk took a more mellow turn.

Joss spoke about Taylor, who was only a few years younger than Badge and the Animals. She talked about his school and his sports teams and chess club.

Then, her eyes drifting toward a corner of the room, Reese watched as darker thoughts overtook her. He thought the shade of the recent encounter with the machine must still be in her mind as she spoke about Taylor's difficult birth and about leaving him behind when she went to Iraq. But when she saw Badge's face fall, Joss rallied to a lighter mood, telling funny stories about her dad's love for baseball, dancing, and mechanical inventions.

Then it was his turn. So Reese told them stories about his adventures picking apples in Washington and oranges in California. He underlined the fun and camaraderie, the sweat and hard work, hinting at other stories too raunchy to tell in mixed company.

These were not actually his memories, but tall tales he remembered from his father. But they sounded better than the forlorn truths about his own past, so he shared the stolen stories as if they were his.

When the ice cream was finished, Badge scooted down until her feet reached the end of the bed and her crown pressed against the headboard. Her words came slower and slower, her energy flagging at long last.

So Reese switched off the bare bulb swinging overhead and they settled into a companionable silence, the two adults still sitting upright while the girl tried to sleep.

But Badge wasn't quite through.

"I want to give back the money, John. It's caused too much trouble," she whispered. "Can you help me do that?"

He gentled his voice in the darkness.

"I don't see how that would make a difference. What's done is done."

"But I could show good will by giving it back. To whoever it was that stole it, you know."

"True, you could, Badge. But right now we don't even know who to give it to."

She didn't say anything for a long while and Reese thought she had fallen asleep. But then he heard a soft mewling noise like a stunned animal caught in a trap.

"That boy that got shot, that was Ratty." She hiccupped over a sob.

"A good kid, but he always moved too slow. That bullet was meant for me. Ratty shouldn't have caught it. It should've been me."

He couldn't let her go to sleep with that grisly image in her head.

"No, you need to stay alive, Badge. For your baby. That's what you're here for now."

Her quiet weeping continued for another minute or two, but then tapered off into a rhythmic snuffling.

Reese felt his chest tighten then. He felt like he'd won a great reward, as if Badge had done him a kindness simply by falling asleep in his bed.

He was thankful that this troubled girl could take some little drop of solace from his presence beside her.

He squeezed Joss's hand where it lay on the mattress between them and that eased the ache in his heart a bit.

He couldn't see his way out of this, not yet.

But Joss seemed confident in him and that was steadying; she thought he was going in the right direction and was committed to the ride. He was comforted by her silent presence and longed to hug her to his chest.

Yearning strummed a familiar beat in him. He wanted her, as always, this constant desire pumping through him even here.

But they were on duty. So instead he leaned his head back against the wall. He was tired. Now that the voice in his ear was silent, all those scratchy thoughts and coiling emotions that threatened to swamp him escaped in a stuttering sigh.

"I'll take the first watch, John. You need to sleep." Joss's silky voice curled through his mind.

"If you sleep now, you'll be ready for tomorrow."

He didn't want to sleep, couldn't abandon the mission, even though his head was throbbing with fatigue.

He wanted to argue, wanted to make the words obey and come out in whole sentences, but they skittered away and wouldn't be tamed.

She was right, he knew.

"Time to stand down, soldier."

Joss sounded firmer now, her words an irresistible command guiding him where he longed to go.

He sank into the mattress until he was prone, his face pressed into her hip, his arm flung across her lap.

Her warm hand stroked the hair at his temple, laying down a gentle pattern until he drifted off, surrendering at last.


	7. Chapter 7

When Reese awoke, bleak daylight was creeping around the legs of the trousers hung at his window.

Instinctively he reached across the flat bed spread.

"Joss."

He wanted her there; she should have been there. She was dead. Again.

"She's gone."

Badge was sitting on the chair, finishing off the shrimp fried rice, her long legs propped on the bed, toes wriggling in blue and gray argyle socks.

"She said to tell you she had to get going. Something about work and blah, blah, blah, you know. But she'll be in touch later in the morning."

He scrubbed his hands across his face to press the sleep from protesting eyes.

"And she said you should call somebody named Harold because he was trying to reach you."

When he didn't say anything, Badge tossed him the cell.

"You know, urgent like."

He didn't want to speak with Finch in front of the girl, but with her staring at him there didn't seem to be any way to avoid it.

After washing his face, Reese made the call as he paced the narrow gap between the bed and the sink.

Finch was brusque, fueled by caffeine and carbohydrates, sputtering with new information.

"Mr. Reese, I was contacted early this morning in regard to Ms. Hofer. The issue has been joined and the matter is coming to a head in a very few hours I suspect."

"O.K. Finch, let's have it."

"A mutual friend of ours has asked about Ms. Hofer's welfare."

"Mutual friend?"

"Yes. Carl Elias."

Finch whispered when he spoke this name, as if saying the words in full-voice would somehow cast a spell summoning the man himself.

Reese didn't need to be told the implications of the mob boss's interest in their case.

"So he's the brains behind this heist, is he? Makes sense."

"Yes, I believe so."

Finch sounded almost elated with this news, eager to elaborate on the scheme he saw unfolding.

"Elias has the manpower, weaponry, imagination, and avarice to make this operation plausible. What I did not realize was that he also has the international reach and computing power to bring his ingenious idea to fruition."

Reese wasn't interested in sky-high speculation at the moment.

But Finch was on a roll, his words flowing down in a torrent barely dammed by the need to take a new breath.

"If what I believe is true, then Elias has created a far-reaching operation, able to infiltrate the computer systems of credit card processing companies and banks on every continent.

"This is cybercrime on a vast scale, Mr. Reese. Elias has succeeded in manipulating the entire global financial system."

Reese figured there was nothing he could do about Elias hacking the international banking system.

If Elias could run a Rube-Goldberg operation like this, hats off to him. It was up to other people, the Finches of the world, to come up with a way of stopping the mob boss and his drive for mastery of the universe.

The only thing Reese could control was what happened in his little corner of that universe. And at the moment, the girl Badge was at the center of it.

"So what does Elias want with Badge?"

Finch's voice rose, sending a cold thrill racing across Reese's shoulder blades with his next words.

"He wants to meet her, Mr. Reese!"

He looked over at the girl slouched in the chair, her hands clasped across her round belly.

"Well, that's not happening, Finch. Not on my watch."

She studied him with placid curiosity, her blue eyes tracking his movements across the room, radiating trust and even a weird sort of happiness.

As if she delighted to hear him speaking a language she only vaguely understood. As if it wasn't her very life he was discussing.

He shook his head, hoping the gesture would wipe any frown from his brow.

Finch continued, conveying his convictions in a firmer voice now.

"I'm afraid I don't see how we have any choice in the matter. Elias says he wants to see her today. He wants her to bring the money. And he wants you to accompany her..."

"I'm not going along with any scheme like…"

"And he says he will order her assassination tomorrow if we don't comply by this evening."

It was settled then. Reese bristled at being trapped like this. But he agreed with Finch: the only way out was forward. Straight into Elias's lair.

In a few more sentences the men sketched out plans for the rest of the day: breakfast and possibly lunch, a change of clothes for the girl, waiting for Elias to designate a meeting point.

Reese had one last request.

"Don't tell Carter about this. None of it. She'll only try to interfere and get herself and us in more hot water."

Finch made his voice sound small.

"Well, I don't exactly see how I can _lie_ to her, Mr. Reese."

"Why not? You lied before, you can lie now."

He put heat into these words, the warmth of his plea easing the dread gripping his throat.

"If she asks, make up a story. Give her another number. Send her on a wild goose chase in some NYPD files. Anything. Just keep her out of this.

"For me, Harold. Please."

XXXXXXXXX

The rest of the day unrolled as planned.

Reese took Badge back to Tortoni's Café where she said she wanted to shower and change clothes.

As he had feared, she was in fact eager to meet with the mastermind behind the money scheme.

Badge wanted to see Carl Elias face to face. She wanted to hand over the cash she had taken, make apologies for her missteps, and explain her charitable impulses.

She was sure Elias would understand.

From her bubbling voice and dancing eyes, Reese also could see she was moonstruck with what she imagined was the glamour of the meeting.

Badge knew it was rare that a foot soldier got an audience with the head of such a vast organization.

She told Reese she was excited for the opportunity. She said it was like going to meet a movie star or the president of the United States or Derek Jeter. If she was scared, she didn't show it, announcing her desire to look her best for the appointment.

As she disappeared upstairs to the apartment she shared with her boyfriend above Tortoni's, Badge thrust her backpack at Reese, declaring it was too heavy to lug up the steps.

Reese took a seat in the café to wait, placing the lumpy satchel between his feet under the little table.

Joss called for the second time that day and he updated her in vague terms, throwing her off the trail, he hoped.

He ordered a tall coffee and sipped it as slowly as he could, but by the time he had finished, the girl still hadn't returned.

Taking pity on him, Mrs. Tortoni, the old crone behind the cash register, gave him a slice of olive oil cake with a serving of fresh fruit on the side.

The cake was light but earthy, a citrus icing sprinkled with shreds of lemon zest decorating the top. Reese felt decadent, even dishonest, savoring this moist dessert while he waited to carry an innocent girl to a possible appointment with death.

He took the empty coffee cup and studied its yellow exterior, which matched the warm golden color of the walls of the cafe.

On one side of the cup bold black cursive letters spelled out the name Tortoni's with scrolls embellishing the Ts and the final S. Under the name was the address of the café and the phrase "Buon Appetito!" below it.

The idea prickled in his mind as he ran his fingers around the rim of the coffee cup.

With a napkin, he slowly wiped out the inside of the cup, pressing the paper into the crevice circling the bottom to absorb the last drops of liquid. When it was clean and dry, he placed the cup inside the backpack, on top of the wads of twenty dollar bills. He was careful to draw the zipper so that the cup was not crushed, but nestled against the stolen money.

This was the way out, Reese was sure of it.

If everything fell into place, if every signal was received, if every hint was heard, he could save Badge and her baby.

At the high cost of betrayal, but a rescue all the same.


	8. Chapter 8

Kehinde's vicious beat-down was expected.

Reese was just grateful that the girl was blindfolded before the blows began so that she couldn't see what was happening to him.

Though his hands were cuffed behind his back, Reese was also thankful that they had decided not to bind her as well.

The thug landed two solid knocks to the kidneys, one on each side for symmetry. Then he spun Reese around to deliver three more punches to the stomach.

Reese kept as quiet as he could. No need to alarm Badge or give Kehinde any satisfaction. Panting, he braced for a knee to the groin - that seemed the brute's style - but none came.

"Boss said to bring you to him in one piece. He didn't say anything about the condition of the piece."

The man laughed with gusto, large upper and lower teeth showing equally.

Then he turned toward Badge and opened her coat. He patted her stomach gingerly, then with greater force. She angled her body away and whimpered.

Reese tried to lunge toward Kehinde, but two goons clamped onto his arms and held him back.

"Relax, stud. I'm not going to mess with your lady. I'm just doing my due diligence. The boss would slit my throat if she smuggled a gun or a cell phone into headquarters by pretending to be knocked up."

One last pat on her belly and Kehinde nodded to his colleagues.

"But it's for real. Congratulations, Pops!"

They wrapped a black blindfold over Reese's eyes and shoved him toward Badge.

XXXXXXXXX

Surrounded by water, Reese thought they were on a barge of some kind.

The vessel's movement was a gentle rocking rather than the shooting propulsion of a motor boat. He knew they were on a river because he could hear the sounds of street traffic nearby, a rumbling tide contracting and expanding in sonorous fluctuations around them.

Badge was breathing easily beside him, her knee pressed against his, her shoulder bumping his chest in time to the jostling of the barge.

Without sight, the other senses expanded their carnal empire.

He inhaled the scent of her skin: fresh leafy notes with warm amber underneath. He wondered again why she was calm in this unprecedented situation. But her presence had a soothing effect on him and he hesitated to question her and upset the eerie magic of the moment.

Water lapped at the sides of the barge wafting briny odors over them. He caught the tang of fish and barnacles, the mildew of old rope, their moldy smell undercut with something of rust and decay.

Overhead, he could hear seagulls squawking as they circled, their cries farther away or closer as the chilly air currents lifted them. The drone of the barge's sluggish motor was interrupted once by the sharp toot-toot from a passing boat.

The rough wake of that vessel sent tremors through their own and, with his hands still cuffed behind him, he struggled to regain his balance on the deck bench. Reese wondered if they would ever reach Elias's lair.

He wasn't sure how much time passed; he guessed it was still late afternoon. With the sky overcast, the sun provided neither warmth nor clues about the direction of this voyage.

Their captors were silent, but not far away, he was certain.

Finally he had to ask her again:

"You're not afraid, are you?"

"No, I'm not." Badge sounded small, but sure as her voice murmured through him.

"Why? Why are you so positive?"

"Well, I'm bringing him back his money. So he has no reason to kill me now, has he?"

Reese knew his next warning would be unwelcome, but he had to deliver it.

"Money isn't the only thing that motivates him."

But she took it the other way around, finding some kind of solace in the idea that Elias was prompted by urges beyond the purely crass.

"Then that's lucky for me, I guess."

Was she chuckling?

He knew it should have been odd, but her laughter sounded so right to him somehow. As if they were on a jaunt, larking down the river on a lazy outing with a picnic lunch as their final destination.

So the quotation just bubbled up in his mind and he said it out loud:

" 'Simply messing about in boats.' "

"You like _Wind in the Willows_ too?" She sounded surprised and impressed.

"Memorized lots of it once."

"In school?"

"Fourth grade. I was a slow reader. Acted up a lot. Mrs. Oppenheim, my homeroom teacher, asked me one day what I wanted."

"What you wanted?"

"Yes. She was the first adult to ask me what I wanted. Maybe the last, too."

That burst out of somewhere deep, but he couldn't push it back down now. The admissions kept on welling up, a tender geyser of feelings long suppressed. So he obeyed these urges and kept on speaking into the intimacy of the darkness.

"Everyone tells me what I want – what I should do, what I should think. What I need is a new attitude. Or a job. Or a purpose."

"And what did you tell Mrs. Oppenheim?"

"I said I wanted to read like the other kids. Faster."

Badge's long fingers squeezed his knee.

"What did she say?"

"She said reading wasn't a race. It was a dance. She gave me a copy of _Wind in the Willows_ and said I should dance with it as long as I wanted. So I sat in the back of her classroom every morning and read that book. Page after page, week after week. All year."

"No tests or nothing?"

"No tests. But each Friday Mrs. O would ask me about what I had read."

"So you memorized the whole book?"

"Not all. But parts I liked. Or parts I thought she would like."

Badge reached around him to touch his manacled hands.

"She was a good teacher. You were lucky, John."

"Yes, she was. And I was."

Badge seemed to change the subject then, but maybe not.

"His name isn't really Otter, you know. It's Bobby Ruiz. I call him Otter when we're with the other Animals. But when we're alone, just by ourselves, I call him Bobby. Sometimes Otter, but other times just Bobby. I just wanted you to know that."

"Thank you."

XXXXXXXXX

Elias had decorated his den like a reception room or parlor.

In the middle of the space stretched a long table of mahogany or cherry wood. Under it was a dark Oriental rug with an intricate border pattern in blood reds, blues, and cream. The carpet was so big the chairs around the table could be pushed back and their feet would remain within the rug's boundaries.

Elias sat at one end of the table in a heavily carved throne, the sparkling light of a crystal chandelier shining on his bald head. His lieutenants and assorted muscle were lined up along the walls of the room, pressed deep into shadows there. Over their shoulders, oil portraits in ornate gold frames peeked out into the gloomy room.

In the hushed ranks, Reese spotted Kehinde near the head of the table. Next to him was a man with identical features and build. His twin, Taiwo, of course.

Reese hoped that Elias's informal dress – dark slacks, open neck gray shirt, no tie – would not disappoint the star-struck Badge too much.

As they walked between the long parallel lines of silent men, Reese told her to stay quiet; he would do the negotiating with Elias. She nodded agreement with the plan, but as she was beside him, he couldn't catch her eye to see if she understood.

Elias was in his usual affable mood.

"John, a pleasure to see you, as always. How many weeks has it been since we last spoke?"

Reese remembered their encounter at Joss's hospital bedside and he knew Elias did as well.

"And how is our Jocelyn these days?"

"Fine." Reese and Badge answered in unison, causing Elias to broaden his smile.

"Ah, you know the good detective, Ms. Hofer?"

"Joss is a cop?"

"Oh yes, and quite an excellent one too!"

Elias seemed positively merry at the exchange.

"I always enjoy her scintillating company, so I imagine you did as well."

Elias tilted his head toward the two chairs to his immediate right.

"Please give Joss my fond regards when you see her next, John."

He resented Elias's attempt to claim her, even in this joking way. He wanted to smash the slimy smile from the gangster's face. But he refrained. The stakes were higher than this momentary challenge to his ego.

He would settle up with the snake another day.

As they moved to sit down, Reese placed his hand on the collar of Badge's coat. She paused to let him remove it, shrugging and twisting to pull her arms from the sleeves.

By the time he had folded the coat and dropped it on the back of a third chair, Reese was sure that Elias had seen her distended stomach poking through the flimsy tissue of her white pullover.

The mob leader raised his eyebrows at this new development.

"When is your child due, Ms. Hofer?"

Badge looked at Reese for permission to answer. He gave her the go ahead with a nod.

"Maybe September."

Seated now, Reese hoisted the backpack onto the table and pushed it toward Elias with enough force that it almost toppled over the edge.

"Here's what you want, Elias. It's all there. Count it, if you wish."

Reese was not interested in bantering because such small talk falsely implied that all issues between them were resolved.

The other man slowly unzipped the bag and pulled out the yellow Tortoni's coffee cup, his brow furrowing.

He set the cup to one side and piled the blocks of cash into a little square fort in front of him.

"Ms. Hofer, you may wonder why I am so concerned about what we all would agree is a paltry sum of money."

Elias ruffled the edge of one stack with his thumb, lips thinning at the sound it made in the dank air of the den.

"In an operation that moves millions every transaction, why would I even note or care about the twelve thousand dollars you skimmed in your little charitable escapade?"

Elias leaned back in his chair, pausing to peer into Badge's face.

"The reason is as plain as a nursery rhyme: If I let you get away with this theft, then others – less generous than you – will imagine they can get away with it too."

He removed his glasses, then adjusted them higher on his nose, causing Reese to wonder if his eyesight was deteriorating.

Both men started when Badge spoke up at that point.

"But I can repay the money, Mr. Elias. Every penny of it."

"I am sure you would repay the debt. Your honesty is hit or miss, but your sincerity is profound. I have no doubt about that whatsoever."

Elias looked around the room at his assembled henchmen. Reese recognized that with an audience present, the theatrical impulses of the man were impossible to stifle. So he sat back in his chair, ready for the display to start.

"If you will permit me, Ms. Hofer, I can explain the complexities of my operation in a few unvarnished phrases that even you will understand.

"This operation derives its strength from a simple principle: although the scope is international each of the individual cells operates independently and in ignorance of one another."

Elias sighed and steepled his stubby fingers together in front of his chest.

"I suppose I sound like an old-fashioned Bond villain gloating about some dastardly plan."

His head oscillated from side to side as he watched Badge and Reese.

"But the fact is I have harnessed the ingenuity of hackers around the world. At my command, they have infiltrated the systems of credit-card processing companies in India and in Nebraska. They have breached banks in the United Arab Emirates and Singapore and Tokyo."

He spread his hands in a wide arc as he concluded with a flourish.

"I have tapped the dynamics of the Internet and the limitless possibilities of cyberspace to create an elegant network that is bold, fast and so new its potential has only barely been mined.

"John, _this_ is the bigger picture you and I have spoken about."

Blinking rapidly, Elias shook his head as if returning to earth. He fixed his serpent gaze on Badge once again.

"Ms. Hofer, as I hope you can see, my operation is a complex one. But I maintain its machinery with a single all-important lubricant: confidence.

"I have to have confidence in those who work for me –" Here he paused and looked directly at the men lined against the wall to his left.

" – At all levels down to the lowliest cashing crew. And conversely, every part of the operation, even the most humble, must have confidence in my word. "

Elias raised his voice, which until this point had been barely above a whisper.

"And they must have confidence in my ability to exterminate anyone who crosses me."

The warning wasn't really shouted, but the walls seemed to reverberate with its power even so.

"That is the confidence your little pilfering threatens to undermine, Ms. Hofer. So a lesson must be taught. An example made for all to witness."

Reese felt Badge quiver next to him, her hands trembling until she pulled them from the table and clasped them in her lap.

The negotiation - for that was exactly what this was - now turned to him.

"She's too small, Elias, and you know it."

Reese spoke softly to emphasize the intimacy of the exchange.

"You hurt her, you diminish yourself. You prove just how small you are. If this operation is as big as you say it is, then you don't want anyone to get the idea that you are just another petty racketeer, do you?"

To signal he was listening, Elias cocked his head to one side.

Reese shifted his eyes toward the yellow coffee cup on the table between them. The mob boss followed his intense stare and flexed the muscles of his jaw so that the skin shivered across his face.

Elias picked up the cup, inspecting it closely, and then reached below the table. From his pants pocket he pulled out a simple switchblade, the kind a kid just starting out would carry to give himself a little courage.

Reese continued his argument now that his opponent's attention was focused where he wanted it to be.

"Let her go. She means nothing to you, Elias. Killing a girl like this signals your weakness, not your strength."

Elias fingered the knife's button release and it sprang like a sinister tongue in his hand.

"John, you make a good point. My generosity can reach even farther than the bloody grasp of punishment."

He turned the cup on its side, carefully sawing around the bottom, while making sure not to nick the high polish of the table's surface. When the circle was complete, Elias removed the disk and set it down flat.

Reese plunged on, knowing his message had been received.

"I'll guarantee Badge leaves the city tonight. And she stays gone. You have my word."

Elias nodded once.

And then with a swift thrust, he sliced the cup down its seam from top to bottom. He pressed the stiff coated paper on the table, smoothing it down until the convex surface had been flattened completely.

"I will accept your pledge, John. And give you my own: no harm will come to Ms. Hofer during the next twelve hours. But if she is found in the city after that time is expired she will be eliminated."

Running his hand over the script that spelled out Tortoni's Café, Elias let his index finger pause over the black lettering of the address.

Reese concluded their bargain.

"Do what you have to do, Elias. But leave the girl alone."

He couldn't look her in the face, maybe he never would again.

But from the corner of his eye, Reese caught a smile playing across Badge's wide innocent mouth. He knew she didn't understand the deadly deal that had just been made to save her life.


	9. Chapter 9

_Author's note: The story ends here. Thank you to all the readers who followed its winding path and especially to those who left such warm, thoughtful, and insightful comments. I am grateful to you all for your support and kindness._

XXXXXXXXX

As he handed her into the bus at midnight, Reese slipped an envelope into Badge's coat pocket.

"This should last you until Tacoma."

She patted its thickness and laughed.

"Far beyond that, I bet."

She sidled down the aisle, her stomach bumping each seat back as she passed.

When she reached an empty row she looked up with a startled expression at Reese who had followed her.

"You going with me?"

He shook his head.

"I can't, you know that."

He pulled her close to his body, his hands tight around her back.

"Here's what I want to say: you need to forget everything. New York, Otter, Elias, me, everything. Understand?"

He hugged her until she squeaked slightly.

"That's the best gift you can give your baby, Danica. If you keep remembering you will throw away any chance for fun or meaning in your life…and in hers.

'This is the last, best gift, the gift of forgetfulness.' "

Badge's eyes lit up, their soft blue enchanting him all over again.

"_Wind in the Willows_. I know that quote too. I love that chapter about Pan."

She leaned back a little bit so that he had to bend over to hear her next words.

"That part is just so beautiful and sad too. I think this is how it goes:

" 'Lest the awful remembrance should remain and grow and overshadow mirth and pleasure. ' "

He whispered the rest of the quotation with her:

" 'And the great haunting memory should spoil all the after-lives of little animals helped out of difficulties, in order that they should be happy and light-hearted as before.' "

Reese felt the bus growing hot, clamping down on him like a serrated trap. Regret bludgeoned him and he choked on the next words.

"Yes, that's it. Forget and you will be just fine."

Badge kissed his cheek then and took her seat, releasing him to flee into the night.

XXXXXXXXX

_**Epilogue**_

Two days later, an hour after dawn, Fusco called Reese to a crime scene near the docks.

"Four-eyes said you'd want to see this. You know this mope or something? Harbor police pulled him outta the river this morning."

Fusco unzipped the body bag and folded back one of its corners so that the head of the dead man was visible.

A wet pelt of black curls crowned a thin face whose faint mustache and wispy beard suggested this boy had not yet begun to shave. Black eyes, flat as buttons, stared at nothing. Reese started counting Otter's water-spiked lashes but gave up; if he noted any more details he would never be able to forget.

The jaunty red scarf was knotted twice around the kid's neck as if it could protect him from the freezing waters of the Hudson. Its cheery color mocked the blood crusted around two bullet wounds at his right temple.

Reese was silent so long that Fusco repeated the question.

"You know him?"

"Yes."

After another long pause, Fusco pushed on, official exasperation giving way to friendly concern as he softened his voice.

"So who is he?"

Reese stood at attention.

He felt remorse at this boy's death, of course. He had killed Otter as surely as if he had pulled the trigger himself.

But he didn't regret the bargain he had struck with Elias. He had made a choice, traded Otter's life for Badge's. And her baby's.

It seemed the right deal to him.

"His name is Bobby Ruiz. He is twenty years old."

XXXXXXXXX

On an unusually warm night in late October, Larry the Worm interrupted Reese's retreat through the lobby of the Taj Mahal to hand him a white business-size envelope.

"This came two weeks ago. I was all set to throw it out. But then I figured it had to be for you so I hung onto it."

Reese looked at the envelope, stained with greasy fingerprints and coated with a fine dusting of grime.

The postmark over the flag stamp indicated it had been mailed from Oakland, California. It was addressed to:

_Mr. John Good_

_The Taj Mahal Hotel_

_23 Cooper Square_

_The Bowery_

_New York, NY _

He handed Larry a twenty and hurried to his third floor room.

Inside the envelope was a single sheet of typing paper. Printed on it was a photo, tinted blue, of a solemn faced baby with a shock of indigo hair. A bow was tied in the forelock and her eyes were cobalt.

The baby was sitting on a lap; in this selfie, the only visible parts of her mother were blue jeans and the sleeve of a cable knit sweater.

Reese turned over the sheet. His hand was shaking with so much emotion that he had to press the page on his thigh to keep it still so that he could read the message.

The inscription was in Badge's looping innocent scrawl: Jemma Hofer Ruiz, Born September 25, 2014, Seattle, Washington.

Below the birth announcement was a simple note from the baby: "Portly can't wait to see Daddy Otter when he visits soon!"

The baby's nickname, taken from the Otter's wandering child in _Wind in the Willow,_ undammed the tears he had held back for months.

When they were all spilled, he folded the page along its original creases and returned it to the envelope.

As he recovered his breath, he wiped away the smeared dirt over his name. Then he slipped the envelope under the mattress, pressing it into the box spring for safe keeping.

Though he had planned to spend the night in safety at the Taj, he changed his mind, raw desire for Joss overthrowing his paranoia and common sense.

XXXXXXXXX

Reese gathered Joss to him, his chest gliding over the sharp planes of her shoulders, her golden skin shimmering in the lamplight.

He drew his palm over the perfect fullness of her ass, feeling the trembling in her thighs that echoed in the quivering of her stomach where his fingers pressed and clasped in time with her moans.

He wanted to join in her now; sharp yearning for the pleasure ahead made his heart ache. He wanted this completion, this connection, with a fierceness that drove all thoughts from his mind.

His cock, heavy in expectation, pulsed with blood for her. Hope mixed with rigid passion in a cauldron of longing, as his stomach churned and clenched in anticipation. He wanted to be inside her, but he wanted to delay the sweet achievement too.

He pressed his mouth to her nape, kissing her spine, her hairline, sucking at the concave behind her ear. His hands found their familiar rhythm kneading her breasts as she sighed for him. She burrowed her face deeper into the pillow and angled her hips towards him.

This was a nostalgia of the body, without logic or theory. Pure, bittersweet sensation.

As he knelt behind her he listened for her voice, the mournful sounds that made up his name. In her mouth, his name seemed sad, like a lament in a secret language. But her saying his name - this liquid eagerness for him - was the surprise by which he measured each day now.

To brace himself for the first penetration, he gripped her waist, his thumbs meeting in the sweat-slick channel of her spine.

Love, undefined and unnamed, was all that remained when he had forgotten everything else; an appeal beyond memory.

He surged forward into her body, ready for this haunting return.


End file.
